Look To The Blood
by Zarius
Summary: There is nothing more tempting for a dark prince without any further need to fear than the gaze of the sun (An alternative ending/add-on to 1x03, "The Dark Compass")


**DRACULA**

**LOOK TO THE BLOOD**

**WRITTEN BY ZARIUS**

**Author's Note: It has come to my attention that this story proved a little confusing to one reviewer. I've since gone in and tried to elaborate a bit better.**

* * *

In their final dream, the sun burned its brightest when they were inside of it.

A burning sensation coursed through their veins as the spilling of warm and tainted blood passed from the body and onto the lips of the undead, bringing total peace to that who drank and gave of it.

"After all this time, did you really think I'd let it hurt?" Dracula whispered softly as the tips of his moist fangs struck deep into the throat of Van Helsing, draining her of her terminal blood. It mattered not if it was Zoe or Agatha; she was his, so devoted to her nobler mission that she had devoted her body to the cost.

The sun rose up, a most beautiful day began, the crack of a small bird's chirps echoed through the still dining hall, stirring Van Helsing from her sleep, steering her away from the sun.

Dracula was committed to only one of her forms, identifying her by only one name.

"Tell me what thinking is _Agatha_" Dracula softly instructed, going in for another bite.

Van Helsing stared at the sunlit roof, hoping to be blinded so she could see nothing but darkness again; the drainage of blood had seemingly failed to send her to slumber.

"Thinking?" she asked wearily, but unable to send herself to everlasting rest.

"For mortals it must be exhausting, coming up with many different ways to move a piece of plastic across a board hoping to gridlock your opponent. Anyone ever tell you traffic is murder in this century?"

He asked her again.

"What do you suppose thinking is?"

"I don't think this is what death feels like" she replied.

"Why would it?" Dracula said.

Van Helsing could detect less of a resignation in his voice; he was now not so prepared to die this day

"What is this?" she said, unable to move, paralysed by the loss of what remained of life within her.

"I was very brave today, this is my reward" he said, getting up and dabbing his blood soaked fangs with the sleeve of his suit, licking the stains off of it.

He stood before the light and extended the reach of his hand, he felt the searing temperature warm him.

"Jack was right; it will be a fine day. Teeming with life. The finest I will ever walk amongst, peak hours, everyone fresh, boundless energy"

"I do not understand" she uttered.

Dracula's grinned with satisfaction.

"Oh yes you do, maybe the part of you that is Zoe that is still trying to process it, but not you Agatha, you've had centuries to figure me out, and this morning all the dawn brought you were epiphanies, you had help getting there didn't you? It would be so nice of you to give credit where credit is due."

The horror of realisation gripped Van Helsing.

"Look to the blood Agatha darling, t's all in there. In what you drank"

"You bastard" she spoke in recognition of her mistake.

The blood Zoe Van Helsing had drank, Dracula's blood, was rich with the DNA of previous victims, and someone that hybrid concoction had created a winning formula that had now made him immune to the cancer inside of her.

"You _knew_, you knew as soon as you realised what I'd taken, that you could feed on me and nothing of consequence would happen, that your noble acceptance would not come to pass"

Dracula opened the chamber door, and straightened his cuff-links.

"I accept all things are possible, for it always comes to pass. This was not a lie, how could I lie to you? You are a woman of strategy and of science. This was a game, but it was not chess. It was risk. An experiment, the results were to my satisfaction. I embraced death, and God spared me...perhaps if you permit yourself the luxury of faith, you too will survive through the day and evade the passage of night"

He turned to the chamber door leading to the elevator that would take him outside.

"Don't you want to wish me a good day?"

"I will not watch" she would say, too weary to scream, pray, cry, or, above all else, crack a cynical yet also complimentary smile at the punchline she knew was coming.

"Yes, you will, look to the blood you drank, the lives you consumed in hopes yours could consume mine...you are not the only one who belongs with. Harker, everyone on board the _Demeter_, everyone before I ever met you or Johnny, blood is lives, and all those I've crossed are within my debt, until I give my _all_ to someone very, very special, that debt will never be paid in full. I own it, I own you"

Before he took his leave, he made a call to the paramedics, giving him his home address and instructing them to pick up an ill person who was rapidly bleeding out across the dining room table.

He picked up the cross and placed it gently in Van Helsing's grip close to her blood-soaked chest.

"I am dying, yet you seek to have me spared. I've never known nobility to be so one hundred percent pointless" she said

"And I have never seen faithlessness this short-sighted. My dear Agatha, the cross is not just a weapon of an army, or a reminder of those braver than you are, see what I now see, it is trust, and fear, and mercy, and righteous rage. It is the best and worst of the mortal condition, a condition I have broken, but a condition I long to remain close to, faith is the plainest choice, it is so easy to lose yourself in a force beyond your understanding. Without god, there cannot be the devil itself"

"So this mercy you show...is just to remind me you are_ necessary_ for the world?" Van Helsing summarised.

"You can expect a blood donation in the morning, and many more after that" he said, tapping his right arm.

"I am the one you will give your all to?"

"Until the bank is empty" he said.

"But in all that time...you will feed" Van Helsing said, concerned for the carnage to come.

"When no one is left and that will take the ecological decline of the world, the final expansion of the sun upon this world to remedy. Pray we never get the chance to touch stars and worlds beyond ours, though at this rate I find two of the scenarios I just described very, very likely"

"Until the end of the world, when no one is left standing but you and I, you will give of yourself so I may wander the Earth" Van Helsing concluded.

"I told you I would make you _last_"

"Me and I alone...while everyone else will be with the devil himself"

"And you, with God"

Dracula took his leave, but as he did, he chose to pray for the first time.

"Be loyal to her, be wise, but above all be faithful in your way, be faithful to the last"

He blew a kiss to her and stepped through the door, towards the day now fully graced by the presence of the sun.

In Van Helsing's mind, all she could experience was the burning.


End file.
